


Mask Protocols

by GrayJay



Series: Rex Racer on the Final Turn [7]
Category: X-Men (Comicverse), X-Men - All Media Types
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-30
Updated: 2015-01-30
Packaged: 2018-03-09 16:25:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3256592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GrayJay/pseuds/GrayJay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>At the best of times, Scott’s ten pounds of screwed-up in a five-pound bag, but he never loses his head in a crisis, always knows the right thing to do, always considers things logically and looks for the big picture. Now, slumped on the edge of the hospital bed in the remains of his costume, their Fearless Leader--who always has another contingency plan, who can pilot an SR-71 through a lightning storm without breaking a sweat--suddenly seems very young and very scared.</em>
</p><hr/><p>A study in parallels.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mask Protocols

**Author's Note:**

> While this story is essentially a one-shot, it also fits around chapters [180](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2356574/chapters/5973812) to [183](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2356574/chapters/5974004) of [_Rex Racer on the Final Turn_](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2356574/chapters/5200295); and takes place somewhere between _X-Men_ #42 and #54, when Professor Xavier is apparently dead.

They all know the fight is over the moment Cyclops ducks in a little too close, and the Hulk--moving faster than anything that size should be able to move--plucks him up by an arm and slams him into the cliff face with an audible _crack_. The Hulk knows it, too, and instead of trying to engage the rest of them, he shakes away the shell of ice and bounds off into the woods.

They don’t even try to follow.

Scott’s out cold, slumped on the ground, one arm twisted behind his head like a broken doll. Hank walks through triage out loud: dislocated shoulder, and they should assume that there’s damage to the socket; almost certainly a concussion, although they won’t know how bad until he wakes up. _If he wakes up_ , Jean thinks. It’s one of those things that hits her with a jolt every once in a while: how stupidly, _insanely_ dangerous what they do is. Ribs probably broken, and Hank makes noises about possible pulmonary damage; but nothing’s displaced, which means the chances of other internal injuries are at least lower than they could be.

“Goddamn Hulk,” says Warren. He’s pacing figure eights, wings tightly furled, mouth a grim line.

They’re trying to figure out how to move him--Jean can lift him telekinetically, but after a fight that long and intense, she doesn’t have the fine control to hold him steady--when Scott stirs, winces, and mumbles something they can’t make out.

“Don’t try to move,” Hank tells him.

“I’m fine,” Scott says, swatting Hank away and struggling to his feet. “Where’s the Hulk?”

“You’re ridiculous,” says Warren. “How many fingers am I holding up?”

Scott starts to answer, then throws up and immediately doubles over clutching his ribs, still insisting that he’s fine.

“Of course you are,” says Hank. “C’mon, Fearless Leader. We’re going to the hospital.

* * *

Syracuse is big enough and close enough to the City for the Emergency Department to have mask protocols, which means they can use the back door and avoid the mess of barging through the waiting room in costume. Hank fills in the abridged paperwork--no details, just a skeleton of a medical history--while Warren paces and Scott insists to anyone willing to listen that there’s absolutely no reason for them to be there.

Jean is used to Scott stonewalling, insisting that he’s fine in the face of the obvious. This is different. His shields are in shreds, and she can feel pain and frustration and something else she can’t quite nail down until he yells at the nurse who’s trying to talk him into letting her start an IV, and Jean finally pieces together what she’s been missing since the woods: this isn’t Scott being _stubborn_. This is Scott _scared_. 

“Would you excuse us for a minute?” she asks. The nurse disappears. “You, too,” she tells the other three. Bobby opens his mouth to protest, sees the look on her face, and shuffles quietly into the hall.

Jean sits down on the bed next to Scott, puts a hand on his knee. He doesn’t say anything, just sits there, tight-lipped and miserable. At the best of times, Scott’s ten pounds of screwed-up in a five-pound bag, but he never loses his head in a crisis, always knows the right thing to do, always considers things logically and looks for the big picture. Now, slumped on the edge of the hospital bed in the remains of his costume, their Fearless Leader--who always has another contingency plan, who can pilot an SR-71 through a lightning storm without breaking a sweat--suddenly seems very young and very scared.

“Hey,” she says. Keeps it soft, quiet, like she’s soothing a stray cat: _Not going to hurt you._

“ _Please_ ,” Scott says. The veneer of field-leader authority is gone; he sounds like he’s about to burst into tears. “I’ll be fine. I swear to god. Please, can we just go home?”

Jean thinks back to the one other time time she’s seen him end up in an emergency room, remembers how the Professor never once left him alone, even though that time Scott was lucid and pretty much intact. Thinks of how insular they’ve become since then, without Xavier to hold their hands in crowds and navigate the slippery ground of public image: nothing short of--well, _this_ \--would get them into to a hospital these days. _Better safe than sorry_ takes an optimism they’ve been hard pressed to scrape up: without the professor, _safe_ is licking their wounds at home, where one wrong step won’t send everything tumbling down. Flashes to the secret she’s buried deep deep deep down in the back of her mind, and hates it, and hates the Professor for a moment, too; because he has to have known how hard it would be; because _he should be here_. Thinks, not for the first time: _Whatever it is, it had better be worth it._

“Cyclops,” she says--wants to say _Scott_ , but the masks come with rules, so she thinks it at him, instead. He looks up, winces at the light. “I know this is the last place you want to be. I’m sorry.” Wishes she had the control to reach into his head and flick the right switches to make this okay. Wishes the Professor had bothered to train her, not just unlocked the door on his way out and left her to work out the rest on her own. “But you’re hurt pretty bad, and we don’t have the facilities or the skills to deal with this at home.”

He pauses a moment, bites his lip. “I’m sorry,” he says, again. “I know I’m--I’m not trying to be--I just--” Pauses again, for longer, and when he talks again, it’s so quiet she can hardly hear. “I hate hospitals.”

Once he says it aloud, it’s easier for her to recognize the shape of the spillover from his mind, the broken-glass-jagged memories creeping in at the edge of her consciousness.

“I know,” she says. “I’m sorry.” Finds his good hand and squeezes, and Scott squeezes back.

He’s quiet for a long time, and then he says, suddenly, “Don’t leave. Please.”

“I won’t,” Jean tells him. “I promise. But you have to let them do their jobs, okay?”

He bites his lip again, and looks away, and doesn’t say anything for a long time, just sits there, gripping her hand. Finally, he nods incrementally. “Okay.”

* * *

“It’s just for observation,” Hank says, for the--eight time? Ninth? Jean has lost count. 

“No,” Scott says. “No. No. No.” Jean can feel him grasping for excuses through the haze of the concussion and meds. “It’s not--we shouldn’t--it’s not strategically sound--a public location, for this long, we need to--” he breaks off and picks at the IV tape.

Jean pulls his hand away. “Don’t do that.”

“I know,” he says. “God. I just--is there any way?” Anxiety swelling like a riptide, so strong she has to close her eyes and brace for a moment to keep it from sweeping her away.

She shakes her head, fishes for terms he’ll accept, something that’ll get through to _Cyclops_ , not just Scott; because Cyclops is who they need right now. “None that come with acceptable levels of risk.” Feels something _click_ as he nods--the fear is still there, but there’s an undercurrent of resolve, focus.

“Okay,” Scott says--Cyclops again, at least a little, at least for now. “Okay. Um. If we’re not going back tonight, we need to--did anyone follow up with the Avengers? Or--our Bureau contact?”

Warren snorts. “We were a little preoccupied.”

“Damnit,” snaps Scott. “You can’t just--someone needs to--”

“ _We’ll handle it_ ,” Bobby jumps in. “It’s just been--this is just kind of messed up. For all of us. You get that, right?”

“It’s a field situation,” Scott says. “You need to be prepared for things like this.”

“I know,” Bobby pleads, and _god_ , sometimes she forgets how young he is. “But it’s not--this is different.” Hank and Warren nod, and none of them says what they’re all thinking: That it’s the first time they’ve had to deal with something like this without the Professor. That without the Professor, they all look to Scott; but Scott is in pieces, and they’re foundering.

Scott opens his mouth to say something, but Jean cuts him off before he can start. “Okay, here’s what we’re going to do. There’s a hotel a few miles up the road; you three change to civvies, get a room, get some sleep. It’s--” she glances at the clock. “Wow. It’s almost eleven. Beast, you’re going to take point on contacting the Avengers, okay? Tonight. They’ll have someone on call.”

“Why him?” Bobby pipes up.

“Because they like him,” Jean says. Their relationship with the Avengers is tensely civil at its best; but Hank is enough of an egghead to have made fast and immediate friends with the science guys, and affable enough to have avoided antagonizing anyone else.

“What about you?” Warren asks.

Jean shakes her head. “Somebody needs to stay here, and they’ll ask less questions at the hotel if it’s three guys. You can pick us up in the morning.”

Across the room, Hank raises an eyebrow. “Marvel Girl. A word?”

She could do this in her head, but it’s been a hell of a day, and she doesn’t really want to let her shields down as far as she’d need to; so she follows Hank out instead.

Heads turn as they step out into the hallway, and Hank leans in to whisper. “Are you going to be okay by yourself here? I’m honestly worried he’s going to try to make a break for it.”

Jean pinches the bridge of her nose, wills away the tension headache building behind her eyes. “We’ll be fine,” she tells him. “He’s just--got some bad history. With hospitals.” Leaves it at that, and hopes Hank’ll get the idea and skip the questions she’d rather not have to decide whether to answer.

Hank sighs. “Oh, dear. He does, doesn’t he? I’d completely forgotten.” She makes a mental note to ask Hank about that later, how much he knows--Scott almost never talks about his past, but Hank’s uncannily observant, and good at finding ways around things like sealed files.

“You gonna be okay dealing with the Avengers?” she asks.

He snorts. “Under the circumstances, I think they’ll be more concerned about dealing with us.” He glances at the door, and his face darkens. “As well they should be.”

“Point,” says Jean.

“Well,” says Hank, “That’s that, then.” Opens the door, and tells Bobby and Warren, “Okay, kids, let’s hit the road so Cyclops can get some rest.” Bobby and Warren are reluctant to go--and it’s not that she doesn’t get it--so she talks Warren down while Hank corrals Bobby.

 _When the hell did we become everyone’s parents?_ she thinks to Hank, and hears him chuckle from across the room.

Warren heads over to the bed. “Hey, Fearless Leader. Behave, or I’ll fly back and kick your ass all over again.”

Scott manages a tight smile, makes as if to to reach for his visor with his good hand. “Good luck with that, flyboy. My eyes are just fine.”

“That gesture is significantly less threatening when you’re trailing IV tubing,” says Hank. Scott blushes and fumbles. “But I second Angel’s sentiment.”

“Me, three,” says Bobby, poking Scott's foot through the covers. “Nothing stupid.” Turns to Jean. “Don’t let him do anything stupid. And call if--”

“I’ve got this,” she tells him.

Warren leans down so he’s at eye level with Scott, his smile gone. “Look at me.” Scott looks. “Marvel Girl is in charge. Can we agree on that? She says _jump_ , you say--”

Bobby breaks in. “You say, _are you insane? The Hulk just threw me into a freaking mountain_.”

Warren laughs. “Yeah, well. But I’m serious. She makes the calls. Tactical _and_ medical. Clear?”

Scott pauses for a long moment, then finally says, “Clear.”

“Cool,” says Warren. Stands up, stretches, and heads out the door after Hank and Bobby, before popping back in to give Jean a fierce hug and whisper, “Look out for him, okay?”

She lets herself cling for a few seconds, pushing her cheek against his chest and feeling the warmth of his wings wrap around her. And then they’re all gone, and Jean and Scott are alone.

She plunks back down in the chair by the bed. Strokes the fingers of his left hand, careful to avoid the IV; and they curl around her hand and squeeze. “Hey.”

“Hey,” he says, very quietly, and she can hear the pain and exhaustion in his voice, realizes how hard he’s been working to hold it together in front of the rest of them.

“How are you doing?” she asks. She wishes the visor didn’t hide so much of his face--but then, she’s still wearing her mask, too.

“Okay,” he says.

“Liar,” she says, but she doesn’t push.

“Yeah,” he agrees, but he doesn’t offer anything else, either.

* * *

What surprises Jean the most is the noise: the whirs and beeps of monitors and machines; footfalls and wheels in the hall; and everywhere, voices. Thoughts, too, riddled with moments intense enough to crash through her shields without warning. She panics for a moment, then reverts to training: breathes in, and drops the walls just enough to let the stray thoughts collect until they’ve become a buffer, a steady blur of white noise.

People come in, ask questions, check vitals. Scott recites dates and locations, fails to accurately count fingers, tries to lie about how nauseous he still is until Jean calls him out on it. The stuff they gave him to set shoulder has worn off, and he flatly refuses anything stronger than tylenol until he coughs and she actually sees everything go white for a moment as he doubles over.

She rubs his back while he lies there, curled up and shaking, and finally tells him, “This isn’t working.”

“ _I’m fine_ ,” he mouths silently; thinks it at her, too, with an edge of panic even stronger than the pain. 

“No, sweetheart,” she says. “You’re really not. My call, remember?” Finds a nurse, talks through options, and if Scott’s not happy about it, he’s either keeping his promise to Warren or just too fucked up to argue; just nods permission and clamps down on her hand when they inject the morphine into his IV, hard enough that when his grip finally relaxes she can feel the circulation return to her fingers in a sudden, painful rush.

“That bad?” she asks.

“No,” he says, blushing as he jerks his hand away. “I just--I don’t like--it’s going to mess with my head.”

“I know,” she tells him. “But so does pain, and there’s a point of diminishing returns.” He bites his lip, looks away, and she reaches up to brush his hair out of his face. “You can’t be a superhero all the time.”

The nurse gives Jean an appreciative nod. “That one’s a keeper,” she tells Scott. 

And Scott, who hasn’t even answered half the direct questions they’ve asked him, who’s skittish about PDA at the best of times (and never, _ever_ in costume) laces his fingers through Jean’s, smiles the first real smile she’s seen from him since they got there, and says, “I know.”

The nurse finishes up, leaves them alone. “How’re you doing?” Jean asks, after a few minutes.

He screws up his face like he’s actually thinking about it, for once. “Okay.” Edges over gingerly, leaving a Jean-sized space on one side of the bed. “There’s room, if you want.”

It takes some careful maneuvering, but they make it work: Jean curled against his good shoulder, their legs tangled. This near, it’s impossible for her to tune out the jagged anxiety, the lingering ache of his shoulder and ribs even through the drugs; but there’s something else now, too, a subtle hum of _safety_ blurring out from the warmth and weight of her body in the bed beside him. Jean nestles a little closer.

“You’re breathing better,” she says, watching the rise and fall of his chest--still shallow, but smoother now.

Scott nods.

“You can take the _I told you so_ as read,” she adds, and he laughs wearily, and winces.

“You should try to get some sleep,” Jean tells him. The adrenaline she’s been running on since noon has finally worn off, and she can hardly keep her eyes open. She has no idea how Scott’s still even conscious.

“I’m not sleeping here,” he says.

She considers whether it’s worth a fight, concludes that anything she can say right now, he already knows and has decided to ignore. Thinks maybe he’ll fall asleep if she just stays there, quietly, but even through the narcotic blur, there’s an edge of tension he never lets slack.

“How old were you?” she asks, finally. Doesn’t ask the rest of the question; doesn’t need to.

He doesn’t say anything for a long time, just lies there, clenching and unclenching his fingers like a nervous tic, until finally he says, “Eleven.”

Eleven was Jean’s hospital year, too, trapped in her head with Annie, dying over and over, and she thinks about that, and an itchy red sweater (only that’s not hers, it’s from a story she read--in school, maybe--someone’s eleventh birthday), and she realizes she’s starting to drift off.

“Was that after the plane crash?” she asks, trying to pull herself the rest of the way awake. It occurs to her again how little she knows about his life before Xavier’s: aside from a few scattered locations and incidents, the first fifteen years are pretty much a cipher.

“Yeah,” he says, then revises. “When I woke up, anyway.”

“Oh,” says Jean. She doesn’t remember much of her hospital, just a handful fleeting details: cold, padded vinyl pressing against her cheek; a pair of too-thick pink socks with sticky rubber dots on the soles. Sad voices. _Everyone has always been nice to me_ , she thinks, out of nowhere. “That must have been--I can’t even imagine.”

Scott nods, chews at his lip. She’s expecting it to stop there, but after a moment, he says, “For months, it was just--I’d have nightmares about the crash, and then I’d wake up, and I wouldn’t know where I was or what had happened; just that I couldn’t see, and nothing worked right, and everything hurt. All I really knew was that I was supposed to look after Alex, and I’d lost him. They kept telling me he was dead, but it just didn’t--I’d try to run away to find him, over and over and over.”

“Oh, my god,” says Jean. “You poor kid.” Thinks about the way Scott talks about Alex, how painfully careful he is of him in ways that always leave Jean worrying about how long it’s been since she called Sara and wondering how they might have turned out if--but there’s no point in dwelling on that now.

“I know this isn’t--that” Scott says. “I mean, I didn’t hit my head _that_ hard. But if I close my eyes, it smells the same, you know?”

Jean tries to remember what her hospital smelled like, but the only smells she remembers from that year are rubber and blood and asphalt. Shudders in spite of herself. 

“Sorry,” Scott says. “I’m sorry. Are you okay? I--I didn’t mean to--”

She shakes her head. “No, you’re good. It’s just--old ghosts. You know.” Blinks, trying to will herself back to alertness and failing. “Are you gonna be okay if I go to sleep?”

“Yeah,” he says. “Of course.” Turns his head, very carefully, to plant a kiss on her forehead. “Thank you.”

“For what?” she asks.

“Staying,” he says. “The team. Everything. I’ll, um. Sorry. I’ll make a list. Later. When things are less--now.”

“Ooh, romantic,” she teases. “I bet you send itemized lists to all the girls.”

“Oh, yeah,” he tells her, with a rueful grin. “But I only drag the _really_ special ones to the hospital.”

“Mm,” she says. “I dunno. Sharing a bed with my best guy, and all the Sprite and bendy straws I want? It’s practically a romantic getaway.”

He snorts. “Remind me never to let you plan a vacation.” And for a minute, it’s almost like they’re _them_ again, and the rest doesn’t really matter.

* * *

Sleep is mostly an empty promise--it’s hard to drift off with Scott’s discomfort seeping in at the edges of her mind, and it seems like there’s always someone else in the room, checking monitors, asking questions. Jean is expecting someone to tell her off for being in the bed, but the nurses and orderlies think it’s sweet-- _young superheroes in love, like a movie_ , she overhears in a passing thought--and they’re all best friends by the time the morning shift rolls around, sneaking her slightly-less-terrible coffee from the break room, telling her about their boyfriends. One nurse pulls out photos of her kids, two boys, and Jean feels Scott go tense and remembers that it’s Alex’s birthday, that they’re supposed to be in Atlantic City riding roller coasters this weekend.

“I’ll call him when we get home,” she says, after the nurse goes.

“No,” says Scott. “That’s not--he’ll worry, and--no.” Laughs faintly, and adds, “He’s probably still trying to get in touch with Banner,” because _of course_ the guy who threw Scott into a mountain is also his brother’s de facto thesis advisor. _If the world gets any smaller, we can keep it in a box._ “If he decides he still wants to go, we’ll--I’ll come up with an excuse. Work emergency, or something.”

Scott and Alex are a mystery Jean has only begun to drill into, and every inch breaks her heart a little harder. “You’re going to push him away if you keep doing that,” she tells Scott.

“I know,” he says. “Maybe that’s--not entirely a bad thing. This isn’t--I want him to stay safe, you know? Even if that means not--” His jaw twitches as he breaks off.

“Have you ever thought about just telling him the truth?” she asks.

“No,” Scott says. “I mean, I’ve thought about it, but--” He sighs. “The Professor was pretty adamant, and his reasons made sense. I know it’s different with your family, but--” He fiddles with the blanket, still avoiding her eyes. “We’ve lost so much. Me and Alex. I just--I just want things to be normal. With him.”

She tucks her head against his shoulder, runs a finger along the edge of his visor. “This is normal.”

“My normal,” says Scott. “Not his. And he’s not--I just want him to be safe. And if that means--he’s my little brother. That’s--it’s what people do. For each other.”

“It’s what parents do,” Jean tells him. “You’re, what, two years older? You can’t look out for him forever.”

Scott leans his head against hers. “I can try.”

* * *

Jean gets breakfast from the waiting room vending machines, and she’s almost forgotten that she’s still in costume until she notices the little girl staring up at her while she drops her quarters into the slot. She wonders if she should worry about being a bad role model, then decides that “candy for breakfast is okay if you’ve had a really rough night” is probably an okay life lesson.

“Are you a superhero?” the girl asks. She’s maybe five or six, hair in poofy ponytails, cradling a stuffed giraffe in a tutu.

“Yeah,” says Jean, wondering just how obvious it is that she’s been sleeping in her mask. She kneels down and extends a hand. “I’m Marvel Girl. What’s your name?”

“Izzy,” says the kid, solemnly shaking her hand. “Did you rescue somebody?”

“Not this time,” says Jean. “I’m here with a friend. Did you rescue somebody?

“No,” says the kid. “My stupid brother fell off his bike. Can you fly?”

“Sort of,” Jean says, because even if she can _float_ , enough time around Warren sets a high bar for actual _flight_. “I like your giraffe.”

Izzy nods sagely. “His name is Juniper.” Twists up her face, and confides, in a stage whisper, “I can’t fly at all.”

“You’re still pretty young,” Jean tells her. “Give it time,” which is probably even less responsible than the Snickers bar in her hand, but it’s been a long night.

When she gets back, she bullies Scott into eating, then drags him through another round of tests and scans. His coordination still isn’t great, and the neurologist isn’t happy that he hasn’t slept, but the scans are still clean and he’s breathing reasonably well given the broken ribs, so she texts Hank, recites back the discharge instructions until the doctor is satisfied, and intercepts the prescriptions before Scott can throw them away. 

Whatever they gave Scott at the hospital--over a final round of protests--wears off a couple hours into the drive, and by the time they’re back at Salem Center, he’s miserable enough to let Jean steer him straight to his room without even mentioning the mission reports that there’s no way any of them are actually going to write today.

He still insists on showering before he’ll go to bed, and Jean slips in with him, because she’s filthy, too; and because he’s still pretty wobbly. “I don’t know if I can catch you if you fall,” she warns him, because after thirty-six hours, her telekinesis is a blunt and shaky instrument.

“I won’t,” he says, but he does kneel to let her scrub the blood and dirt out of his hair, face leaned into her side. “God. What a stupid day.”

“Yeah,” says Jean. The water is as hot as either of them can stand, and as her muscles finally begin to unknot, she can feel the weight of every minute of the day and a half she’s been up.

“Let’s just stay in here for the rest of the week,” Scott mutters into her hip. 

Jean laughs. “We’d get all pruney. And you’re about five minutes from passing out.”

“Probably,” Scott agrees; and she thinks that maybe it should scare her that he admits it so readily, but she’s settled firmly in the numb pragmatism of exhaustion.

She gets them out of the tub and dried and dressed; and Scott doesn’t pass out, even though by the time they’re done, he’s gritting his teeth so hard her jaw is starting to ache in sympathy. Jean curls up behind him in bed, wraps an arm around him as gently as she can, and holds on until she feels him relax, a little.

“I’d forgotten how much this sucks,” he says after a minute, face half buried under a pillow.

“You should take something,” she tells him.

“I’m fine,” he says.

She snorts. “Telepath, remember?”

“Then stay out of my head.” He’s too tired to even snap properly.

“You’re projecting,” she tells him. “Neither of us is going to be able to sleep, like this.”

“You have a room,” he says.

* * *

Jean doesn’t tell Alex out of revenge, no matter what Scott thinks. She tells Alex because of the look on Scott’s face in the hospital, when he said Alex might be better off if Scott pushed him away. She tells Alex because she has a sister, even if she and Sara aren’t the kind of close that Scott and Alex are. She tells Alex because she needs to know that someone else understands how uniquely lonely it can be to love Scott Summers; and the boys downstairs will listen to her vent, but they won’t _get it_ , not the way Alex will.

She doesn’t tell him the whole truth, of course--makes up a story about a bike crash, knows he’ll be too worried to look too closely at the details. Listens to him explode, all fear and love and anger, the way she can’t because she’s too busy holding everything together; and feels a little guity at how much it comforts her for someone else to feel those things: the two of them, in balance, with Scott as the fulcrum.

“Are you in love with him?” Alex demands.

Jean knows the answer, but there’s a frightening permanence to saying it aloud. A confession that, when it comes to Scott, she’s more heart than head; and she’s had to fight so hard for every inch of authority on the team. Because if she cries or cracks, it’ll just prove what they already assume, and she’ll drown in her own tears; and love is even worse, even with Scott. Especially with Scott.

But she’s pretty sure Alex gets it in a way Hank and Bobby and even Warren don’t, and if she’s letting him worry for both of them, well--turnabout is fair play. “I am _stupidly, ridiculously_ in love with your brother,” she tells him. “And if you tell him I told you that, I will drive to Landon and murder you. And then he’ll dump me. So don’t do that.”

“Jesus, you two.”

“I know,” she says. “But please, okay?” Wishes she could tell him the truth, because he deserves it; because it would be nice having someone to talk to, _really_ talk to. She has Sue, but Sue is ten years older, and Sue has Reed and Franklin and Johnny and two Ph.Ds and a lot of other things that Jean can’t even imagine wanting, now or ever.

“Does he know?” Alex asks.

“He’d damn well better, after yesterday,” says Jean.

Alex’s laugh crackles like static. _He’s a good kid_ , Jean thinks. Wonders if Scott sees how hungry Alex is for somewhere to fit--with an adoptive family that chafes like someone else’s shoes, and a brother too scared of losing him to let him in. Wonders if she and Alex could be friends, real friends, beyond mock-fighting over _Star Wars_ and ganging up on Scott.

“Maybe he can call you back in a little bit, okay?” she tells Alex. “And I’ll, um, I'll call if anything changes. I promise. And you have my number, right?”

“Yeah,” he says. “Thanks.” She wishes she could tell him to jump on a train, or just throw caution to the wind and tell him everything, send Warren down to pick him up; but there are some lines she can’t cross, even for this. Tells him again that Scott’s going to be fine, that they’ll call no matter what; wishes him luck with his thesis; and after she’s hung up, sits down in the hallway and cries, silently, for as long as she’s willing to let herself.

* * *

“How are you doing?” Scott asks her. They’re in the rec room, dozing off in front of cartoons. Now that he’s finally capitulated on the pain meds, they’ve been snatching sleep a couple hours at a time--it isn’t enough, but it’s something.

“I’m okay,” she says. “I don’t know. Tired. This is kind of nice, though.”

“Yeah,” he says.

“Are you sure you’re not bored?” she asks. He’s still not really up to moving images on a screen, so he’s been listening to the TV with his eyes closed, a pillow halfway over his head.

“Nah,” he says. “It’s like radio. It’s nice. I’m not paying much attention anyway.”

“How’s Alex?” she asks. He’s been calling more than he really needs to, but neither of them is willing to tell him to stop, especially since it’s obviously killing him that he can’t drive down.

Scott sighs. “Okay. Worried. He’s a good kid. I wish--” breaks off, and bites his lip.

“I know,” says Jean. “Me, too.”

“I’m sorry for being such an ass,” Scott says. Sits and listens to Batman beating up thugs for a minute, then says, suddenly, “You’re a good leader. You know that, right?”

Jean laughs. “That’s the Percocet talking.”

“No,” says Scott. “You’re--you think I don’t see. What you do. At the hospital, how you--you hold us together. All the time. I can do--strategy, logistics, all that stuff, but you’re--you make us fit. And it’s not--you think I don’t notice. Like in the book, from your tutorial, the one with the radium girls--”

“ _Gender and Work_?” Jean asks. She’s surprised he remembers.

“Yeah,” says Scott. “That one. I don’t remember the word for it, but there was one. The people who take care of--people things. Feelings. And people don’t, um, see? But it’s still work? You know what I mean.”

“Emotional labor?” she guesses.

“Maybe,” says Scott. “But I see. Okay? What you do.”

“Thanks,” she says. “God, that-- _thank you_.” Her eyes sting, and she closes them; leans her head against his chest. He strokes her hair with his good hand.

“You really scared me,” she says.

“I know,” he says. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” she says.

“I love you,” says Scott.

“I love you, too,” she tells him. 

It’s not until a minute later, when Batman is explaining the plot to Commissioner Gordon, that she realizes it’s the first time they’ve said it aloud. _This is how it is with us_ , she thinks: changes so gradual they have to look back to place the milestones. Wonders how long he’s felt about her the way she’s felt about him since she was eighteen. Wonders what’ll happen when Xavier comes back; whether maybe they can leave then, go somewhere without Hulks and masks and really live the lives they tried on for a few short months in Fall. She’s still booking gigs now and then, and her agent has said he can get her more if her schedule opens up; and Scott could go back to radio. They could go to Westbridge, she thinks, or even the co-op in Queens--she wouldn’t even mind being on call now and then if the X-Men needed them.

“Are we going to be okay?” she asks. “Sorry--I just need to hear it from someone else. You know?”

“Yeah,” he says. “We’re gonna be okay.”

“Yeah,” Jean says, “But we all know you lie.” On the TV, Batman is dodging bullets.

“Yeah,” says Scott. “I don’t know. I don’t think anyone can know for sure. We’re okay right now, though, right?”

Jean looks up at the bruises on his face and the sling on his arm, thinks about Alex pacing grooves into his floor in Landon. Hank, upstairs in the lab, burying himself in books so he’ll have something to talk about at breakfast while Bobby tries to pry him away; Warren, flying restless circles through the trees. “We’re kind of screwed up,” she tells him, “But, yeah. I think we’re okay.”

“Cool,” says Scott, drowsily.

“Cool,” echoes Jean, and lets herself drift off to sleep.


End file.
